Association of Professional Women Builders of Nigeria (APWBN) has called on the government to put up a deliberate policy geared towards girl child education and women empowerment initiatives to increase women entrepreneurs in nation-building.
Such a policy, according to the guest lecturer during the Annual General Meeting / Conference of the association in the country, Mary Atinuke Kolawole, a builder, would be of immense benefit in increasing the percentages of women entrepreneurs and business owners among Nigerians.
Kolawole, a former Chairperson, Kwara State Chapter of the Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB), noted that a significant 30 per cent of Nigeria’s entrepreneurs are women, and 41 per cent of Nigeria’s micro-businesses are owned by women, pointing out that the number could be increased through a deliberate policy of the government.
If the policy is created, she is of the opinion that it would inadvertently contribute immensely to nation-building.
Speaking on the topic of discussion: “Entrepreneurial Roles and Nation Building: Professional Women Perspective,” Kolawole said that women’s greater role in nation-building could lead to rapid economic developments in any part of the world, more significantly in developing countries like Nigeria, where human capital development and capacity is still much of a challenge.
According to her, from the socio-cultural perspective, women contribute very immensely to family building, which is a microcosm to nation-building.
She added that women are also important in educating children in different families to inculcating morals and values that help the totality of the nation to be on a strong footing.
The professional women due to their extra commitment to succeed have predominantly proven to excel in their roles, citing the current Director-General of the World Trade Organization and a former coordinating minister of the Nigerian economy, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as an example.
The guest speaker urged women builders to embrace entrepreneurship as a means of safeguarding their future. Kolawole defined entrepreneurship as the activity of setting up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit.
She is of the opinion that nation-building could be approached from an entrepreneurial perspective.
She stated that nation-building involved the process of creating, structuring, and strengthening a nation’s identity and territorial integrity in order to ensure stability and position it to assume an active position in international affairs.
She explained that the positive impact of entrepreneurship in nation-building was typified by Chinese economic development in the 20th century.
According to Kolawole, by adopting a tactical move away from centralised economic management, the Chinese massively encouraged real sector production through subsidies and the creation of special economic zones.
The resultant effect of the approach adopted by the Chinese government, she said, led to China overtaking Japan to become the world’s largest economy by 2010.
She listed the importance of entrepreneurship to include employment’s creation; innovation, stable economy and increase in standards of living.
According to her, entrepreneurship would provide an entry-level job required for gaining experience and training for unskilled workers; bring about changes in society and promote facilities like higher expenditure on education, better sanitation, fewer slums, a higher level of homeownership.
“Entrepreneurship assists the organization towards a more stable and high quality of community life,” she said.
Entrepreneurship, according to her, would help to improve the standard of living of a person by increasing the income and enhancing support for research and development: of new products and services.
According to Kolawole, the roles of an entrepreneur include initiating and leading business activities, allocating employees’ duties, creating jobs, identifying business opportunities, creating and sharing wealth, improving the standard of living, and taking up and reducing business risk
Justifying the essence of the theme, Chairperson of APWBN, Adenike Said, explained that things have been assumed to be tough hence the need for women builders to look inwards and think outside the box in order to meet up with responsibilities and create a better life for themselves.
She noted that unemployment has become very serious in the country, pointing out that the construction industry is a sector where a lot of business opportunities could be created if the knowledge of entrepreneurship is widely spread.
“Fresh professional women can run their own business. However, to start a small construction business is a challenging issue, in which I believe that the facilitator and discussants are going to trash out.”
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